this shooter was a troubled man. he was a gun owner who beat his wife. statistics say that people who own guns and are domestic abusers are more likely to have anger issues and are more capable of doing this kind of thing.

true the guy supported sanders. sanders has condemned it. most of us on the left have condemned it. this is not how you make your point. i dislike scalise a great deal, but i do not want harm to come to him. i saw an article that republican congressmen are receiving threats now. one received an email that said "one down, 213 to go." this is not how you make the change you want to see.

that said, i can understand where this guy is coming from. trump lost the popular vote by 3 million people. more people voted for democrats for the house and senate than republicans, yet the republicans hold both houses due to gerrymandering. trump won with the assistance of the russians and comey. the gop is wanting to take his health care away while cutting taxes for the rich and cutting benefits for the poor. i understand the guy is angry and i understand how it feels when congress does what it wants and does not listen to the people. he probably has zero faith in the electoral process. probably felt that even it the dems win by a greater margin in 2018 they will still lose because the districts are rigged in favor of republicans. he probably felt helpless and pissed off as a result. you have fox news and their pundits talking about second amendment remedies last year, and this guy went ahead and did it. he probably felt like he had no other recourse and wanted to make a statement. that to me is what terrorism is. this guy is a white, leftist terrorist.

i feel bad for those that died and hope that the wounded can fully recover.

i am not supporting this person at all. i am just saying i can understand his frustration with the system.

I appreciate your honesty in this, and I read this 2x before commenting....but I have no idea how you can understand where he is coming from. I don't. I don't understand the need to shoot people I disagree with. I find it absurd actually. So I personally have no idea where this guy was coming from and don't think he should get any level of support/sympathy....can't think of the right word. I honestly can't for the life of me figure how you could write this about this guy.

i did not say he deserves any support or sympathy. i was expressing empathy and trying to see where he may have been coming from and what his motive was. big difference.

where did i say i understand his need to shoot people he disagrees with? my words in my post, to your words in yours, is quite a stretch.

all i said is i understood his anger and frustration with a system that is working against him. i also called him a white, leftist terrorist, because that is what he was.

I said I couldn't think of the right word...regardless I don't have any empathy for this guy and can't see how anyone does. What about him makes you feel empathy for him based on his actions?

Sitting there thinking about why this guy was driven to do this and showing any level of understanding is making a BIG leap. He got mad and shot people, bottom line. So, anytime anyone gets mad it's ok?

Having empathy isn't saying something's okay. We don't progress as people without empathy.

And clearly not everyone deserves empathy.

I disagree. Lack of empathy is what's driving this country apart. Empathy is a huge burden to bear and difficult for most to understand. It is critical in instances like this one though because it allows you to process it, without agreeing or supporting the behavior. The best homicide detectives and profilers rely on empathy to get inside the minds of their suspect.

Has absolutely nothing to do with it. I hate the NRA but this comparison is ridiculous.

In a sense, no, but if you are supportive of less restrictions on that groups base members and have direct influence, like he does, to affect those restrictions then you can expect to feel the burn of the knife in the back when Karma comes back your way. This would be no different than him being against tighter regulations on car seats and then said car seat caused his child to be injured because those regulations weren't in place. I guess that $5000 from the NRA was more important.

This guy was a Bernie supporter and a domestic terrorist. Nothing more. The NRA is not to blame. The guy is.

Meanwhile...still waiting on prominent celebrity leftists to condemn this and the actions of communist organizations such as antifa.

Did he yell Alla Bernie Sanders before he started shooting? And even so, does anyone who supported Bernie need to clarify that they don't support the shooting? I didn't see any of the leftists you're calling out support shooting their local politicians so no reason to condemn something they don't support. Trump and others get called on their shit because they only selectively condemn violence done by someone who is of a different nationality or fits their fear mongering propaganda. On the flip side, leftists have called for stricter guns laws, but instead the right's response is more gun freedoms because this guy was killed by a gun. Your logic makes no sense. Leftist's want more gun restrictions and are coming for everyone's guns, but yet support someone being shot by a gun? I think several find it ironic, but I haven't seen any support for it.

this shooter was a troubled man. he was a gun owner who beat his wife. statistics say that people who own guns and are domestic abusers are more likely to have anger issues and are more capable of doing this kind of thing.

true the guy supported sanders. sanders has condemned it. most of us on the left have condemned it. this is not how you make your point. i dislike scalise a great deal, but i do not want harm to come to him. i saw an article that republican congressmen are receiving threats now. one received an email that said "one down, 213 to go." this is not how you make the change you want to see.

that said, i can understand where this guy is coming from. trump lost the popular vote by 3 million people. more people voted for democrats for the house and senate than republicans, yet the republicans hold both houses due to gerrymandering. trump won with the assistance of the russians and comey. the gop is wanting to take his health care away while cutting taxes for the rich and cutting benefits for the poor. i understand the guy is angry and i understand how it feels when congress does what it wants and does not listen to the people. he probably has zero faith in the electoral process. probably felt that even it the dems win by a greater margin in 2018 they will still lose because the districts are rigged in favor of republicans. he probably felt helpless and pissed off as a result. you have fox news and their pundits talking about second amendment remedies last year, and this guy went ahead and did it. he probably felt like he had no other recourse and wanted to make a statement. that to me is what terrorism is. this guy is a white, leftist terrorist.

i feel bad for those that died and hope that the wounded can fully recover.

i am not supporting this person at all. i am just saying i can understand his frustration with the system.

I appreciate your honesty in this, and I read this 2x before commenting....but I have no idea how you can understand where he is coming from. I don't. I don't understand the need to shoot people I disagree with. I find it absurd actually. So I personally have no idea where this guy was coming from and don't think he should get any level of support/sympathy....can't think of the right word. I honestly can't for the life of me figure how you could write this about this guy.

i did not say he deserves any support or sympathy. i was expressing empathy and trying to see where he may have been coming from and what his motive was. big difference.

where did i say i understand his need to shoot people he disagrees with? my words in my post, to your words in yours, is quite a stretch.

all i said is i understood his anger and frustration with a system that is working against him. i also called him a white, leftist terrorist, because that is what he was.

I said I couldn't think of the right word...regardless I don't have any empathy for this guy and can't see how anyone does. What about him makes you feel empathy for him based on his actions?

Sitting there thinking about why this guy was driven to do this and showing any level of understanding is making a BIG leap. He got mad and shot people, bottom line. So, anytime anyone gets mad it's ok?

Having empathy isn't saying something's okay. We don't progress as people without empathy.

And clearly not everyone deserves empathy.

You're saying that with certain people, you're not going to be empathetic. Try it with everyone. Only good can come from it.

I'm not sure this belongs in this thread cause it's a gun thread....but given recent events this is disturbing. Leaders in Washington need to change the rhetoric now! Trump is dangerous....but so are others. Instead of doubling down like that idiot GOP piece of crap that is blaming Obama partially for creating the environment for the shooting....they all need to look in the mirror and change the way they have been talking. The rhetoric and the running to the fringe voters just to get or keep power needs to stop. But I doubt it will.

This has been in the work for a while. When I voted for Obama in 2008 I had hoped he was the leader to get us past it. But, the republicans become worse and the democrats continued to follow them down. Now Trump who is obviously one of the worst when it comes to this nonsense and the liberals are trying even harder to be worse.

I have no faith that the leadership we have elected in Washington has the ability to lead us out from this situation. They can barely come together for 24 hours after a big tragedy. Then it's back to business as usual which is getting nothing done, shouting each other down, and inspiring people to be like them....and worse.

Guns and denial go hand in hand: 'if someone wants to kill someone, they're going to find a way no matter what'. 'Guns make us safer' etc.

I disagree with the "if someone wants to kill someone, they're going to find a way no matter what". Yes, some people do use it as a denial, but I consider it more a statement of fact. People that want to hurt/kill others, will use whatever means necessary, i.e. gun, car, bomb, knife, etc. I do agree though that the "guns make us safer" comment as a denial though. They don't.